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Death Egg

"Showcase WAD"

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I've been thinking recently about an idea for a Doom mod. What if, as a showcase of the best of the Doom community, take the best levels ever created for any sort of Doom project, and put them into a giant 32-level megawad for Doom II. Of course, this would definitely take a while, considering there's deciding on what could be considered the very best of the best, getting permission from the authors of those WADs, fitting them all together, custom graphics, clashing level themes, different source ports, etc. But this would show off what the Doom community is really made of, and also be an incredibly fun megawad as well.

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With so many different styles and opinions on what is "best", it might be hard to get people to agree on something.

An option that seems more realistic to me would be to ask everyone to name their favorite maps and put the megawad together based on which maps come out most often.

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Phml said:

With so many different styles and opinions on what is "best", it might be hard to get people to agree on something.

An option that seems more realistic to me would be to ask everyone to name their favorite maps and put the megawad together based on which maps come out most often.

Another thing to help decide the best would be to limit the maps taken from megawads to one, so there aren't like 4 or 5 maps from Alien Vendetta or Hell Revealed. I do like what you say about having people name off what they think would be fitting to be named "the greatest".

Another thing, many people seem to differ on though is source ports. I'm guessing that it would be in the best interests to limit this to limit-removing levels, since almost every source port would be able to support it that way.

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I can't say I'm very fond of this idea, and doubt very much that the more prominent authors will be too eager to see their WADs plastered together as chunks of some type of glossy promotional package.

But this would show off what the Doom community is really made of

It would show some of the mapping talent in a rather peculiar context, but it's hard to see how it would represent other aspects of the community, such as the players.

It reminds me of those ancient "megawads" made back when DOOM was young, but back then there was some sort of excuse for the compilations, as people hadn't yet produced (many) megawads or even episodes. Incidentally, those died down once authors started getting more talent, character and independence.

tl;dr: We already have lists and reviews to highlight the more outstanding WADs, to need a mish-mash attempt to do the same.

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Most of the best maps ever are considered so because of their uniqueness. Cramming all of these levels together would make a very inconsistant wad.

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That's kinda what the Cacowards does except instead of piling them all in one wad, they just commend the author's outstanding effort and provide links to them.

Something in a similar vein, is the Community Chest, where the communities prominent mappers show and start mapping for a megawad.

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TBH, it doesn't that bad an idea to me. It could be interesting to see some of the great maps juxtaposed together. It may even help bring out certain positive idiosyncrasies that actually make the maps great. Sometimes it's nice to listen to a greatest hits album. This could have the potential to be a Doom equivalent... :)

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Guest

tbh, one of the things that make a level great is context. I think that AV or MM wads are too closely associated with their own megawads already.

But I think this could be a cool idea if you took single wads, perhaps lesser know ones, and merged them. Then this idea definitely has potential. Possibly another decent megawad, if the levels are well balanced and flow together pretty well.

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Perhaps by limiting yourself to single-map wads that were never in a series of any kind, you will have a better scope for the project. Otherwise the problems other people brought up would keep it from being successful

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Yeah, the single level wad idea might be a better way to go. It'd pretty much end up like CC pack or something but it could be good in it's own right if the levels were ordered appropriately. I would say difficulty being the most important aspect in level order. :)

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Kyka said:
But I think this could be a cool idea if you took single wads, perhaps lesser know ones, and merged them. Then this idea definitely has potential. Possibly another decent megawad, if the levels are well balanced and flow together pretty well.

magicsofa said:
Perhaps by limiting yourself to single-map wads that were never in a series of any kind, you will have a better scope for the project. Otherwise the problems other people brought up would keep it from being successful

Per-Scan said:
Yeah, the single level wad idea might be a better way to go. It'd pretty much end up like CC pack or something but it could be good in it's own right if the levels were ordered appropriately. I would say difficulty being the most important aspect in level order. :)

I'm going to have to say this idea does sound like it would work a lot better than taking them from megawads. This sounds like the way to go with this.

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preferably none of them. The cacowards will be here in about 36 days which will showcase all of Doom's yearly best stuff.

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which will showcase all of Doom's yearly best stuff.


Very arguable.

It is a good place to start, and often features quality releases, but in the end it's the opinion of a few individuals (is there even multiple persons doing it or just one guy, anyway?) with defined tastes. I haven't seen a gameplay-oriented wad making the list yet, unless it also had relatively good looks.

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While I'm not totally opposed to wad compilations I think the community is well past the days of the wadpaks, heroes 1&2, etc. I think if you started putting together compilations of maps without asking for permissions and whatever first, it wouldn't be long before the word "shovelware" starts getting thrown around and things get ugly.

I think these days it's much more successful - not to mention polite - to announce you're starting a community project and call for donations. This usually results in more new maps getting made, which adds orders of magnitude more value to the community than merely repackaging old stuff. Especially if it's best-of-the-best really well-known old stuff.

However if you still want to showcase wads that's not such a bad idea if you change your idea a little bit. There are an awful lot of good wads that slip through the cracks and don't get the attention they deserve and I think if you make a thread or even a website that showcases such "hidden gems" you would be providing a very valuable service.

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